did Dan Rather lie about the weapons inspectors?

I had the same impression as this blog, that the U.S. was the one that made the decision for the inspectors to leave.

But Dan Rather told this myth yet again, while showing footage of the trucks passing through the gates.

http://www.empirenotes.org/june04.html#21jun041

<snip>

The most damaging lie on the program, however, was one that Rather and Clinton were both complicit in. I kid you not, after five solid years of debunking, Rather in his narration once again repeated the lie

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/18/60minutes/main624848.shtml that "Hussein kicked U.N. weapons inspectors out of Iraq in 1998."

Iraq activists and media critics have spent countless hours debunking this lie in media forums across the country, but it dies very hard (note that media coverage at the time of Desert Fox in December 1998 uniformly reported that Richard Butler ordered the inspectors out at the behest of the United States -- see, for example, this story http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/meast/9812/16/iraq.strike.03/).

Please join me in flooding 60 Minutes with letters calling for a retraction of this so-venerable lie. You go to the 60 Minutes site http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/60minutes/main3415.shtml and then scroll down to "Contact Us" in tiny letters at the bottom and click on the link to bring up the appropriate form.

If I remember. I'll have to come back later with a link--gotta go make lunch now.

Katie Couric trumpeted this crap, too.

Look on fair.org...

had Curt Weldon of PA QUOTING THE WASHINGTON TIMES about how the Clinton Administration, through Madeline Albright, tried several times to stop the UN weapons inspections from surprise visits.

SOOOOO, we all know how factual the Moonie, er, Washington Times is about all things Clinton.

So there is a bit of conflict on their propaganda.

...before launching air strikes. Bush has used this lie (shocker, huh?) to his advantage, that Saddam kicked out the inspectors, so what's the point of sending in inspectors.

The same tactic used for the Saddam-911 connection. It is just repeated brazenly despite the truth so it becomes the myth of truth.

http://www.fair.org/extra/0210/inspectors.html


What a Difference Four Years Makes

Why U.N. inspectors left Iraq--then and now

The U.N. orders its weapons inspectors to leave Iraq after the chief inspector reports Baghdad is not fully cooperating with them.

-- Sheila MacVicar, ABC World News This Morning, 12/16/98

To bolster its claim, Iraq let reporters see one laboratory U.N. inspectors once visited before they were kicked out four years ago.

--John McWethy, ABC World News Tonight, 8/12/02

---

The Iraq story boiled over last night when the chief U.N. weapons inspector, Richard Butler, said that Iraq had not fully cooperated with inspectors and--as they had promised to do. As a result, the U.N. ordered its inspectors to leave Iraq this morning

--Katie Couric, NBC's Today, 12/16/98/

As Washington debates when and how to attack Iraq, a surprise offer from Baghdad. It is ready to talk about re-admitting U.N. weapons inspectors after kicking them out four years ago.

--Maurice DuBois, NBC's Saturday Today, 8/3/02

---

The chief U.N. weapons inspector ordered his monitors to leave Baghdad today after saying that Iraq had once again reneged on its promise to cooperate--a report that renewed the threat of U.S. and British airstrikes.

--AP, 12/16/98

Information on Iraq's programs has been spotty since Saddam expelled U.N. weapons inspectors in 1998.

--AP, 9/7/02

...

This is culled from the rough transcript of my book, 'War on Iraq,' which stands still un-debunked:

===

PITT: Why were the UNSCOM inspectors pulled out in 1998?

RITTER: In August of that year, Richard Butler took a delegation to Baghdad for discussions. The Iraqis were fed up with what they felt to be foot-dragging and deliberately provocations. They felt the inspectors were probing inappropriately into areas that dealt with the sovereignty and dignity of Iraq, and its national security. They wanted to clarify these issues. Richard Butler came in with a very aggressive program, and the Iraqis announced they weren't going to deal with him anymore. They felt he was no longer a fair and objective implementer of Security Council policy, that he was little more than a stooge for the U.S. Butler withdrew, and the Iraqis said they weren't going to deal with UNSCOM. This led to Richard Butler ordering the inspectors out in October.

Actually, the Iraqis had said from the beginning they weren't going to deal with American inspectors. Then they relented, but said they wouldn't let Americans do anything other than ongoing monitoring. At that point, Richard Butler pulled out all of the inspectors.

The US prepared to bomb Iraq. The bombers were in the air. Then the Secretary General's office was able to get the Iraqis to agree to have the inspectors return without precondition, and the bombers were called back. But the Pentagon and White House felt they were being jerked around by the UN, so a decision was made to bomb anyway.

On November 30th of 1998, Richard Butler met with Sandy Berger, the National Security Advisor, at the U.S. mission to the United Nations in what they call 'The Bubble,' the secret room where you can have protected conversations. Berger told Butler the US was going to bomb, and laid out the timeline. The bombing campaign had to coincide with inspection: the inspections were to be used as the trigger. So Richard Butler was encouraged to develop an inspection plan of action that met U.S. strike timelines.

Based on these conversations, Richard Butler decided to send in inspectors to carry out very sensitive inspections that had nothing to do with disarmament but had everything to do with provoking the Iraqis.

Now, Iraq had already come up with a protocol for conducting what are called "sensitive site inspections," after several inspection teams I was involved in tried to get into special Republican Guard and other sensitive facilities around Baghdad. The Iraqis had said, reasonably enough, that they didn't want forty intelligence officers running around these sites. Rolf Ekeus flew to Iraq in June of 1996 and worked out an agreement called the 'Modalities for Sensitive Site Inspections.' When inspectors came to a site that the Iraqis declared to be sensitive, the Iraqis had to facilitate the immediate entry of a four-man inspection element that would ascertain whether this site had anything to do with weapons of mass destruction, or whether it was indeed sensitive. If it was sensitive, the inspection was over.

These 'Sensitive Site Modalities' were accepted by the Security Council, and became part and parcel of the framework of the operating instructions. And they worked, not perfectly, but well enough to enable us to do our jobs from 1996 to 1998.

After talking with Sandy Berger, Richard Butler, working in close coordination with the United States, said that when the inspectors went in to Iraq that December, they were to make null and void the Sensitive Site Modalities. He did this without coordinating with the Security Council. The only nation he coordinated with was the United States.

The inspectors went in to Iraq, and to a Ba'ath Party headquarters in downtown Baghdad. The Iraqis said it was a sensitive site but the four-person team was welcome to come in. The inspectors unilaterally made null and void the Sensitive Site Modalities, and said the entire inspection team was going to come in. The Iraqis compromised by allowing a six-man element to inspect. The element found nothing. Still the chief inspector, under orders from Richard Butler, demanded a much larger team be given access. The Iraqis responded that only under the Sensitive Site Modalities would they allow a team back in. The inspectors withdrew and reported to Richard Butler. Butler cited this as an egregious violation of the Security Council mandate.

Under orders from the United States, he withdrew the inspections teams. He did this in direct violation of a promise he had given to the other members of the Security Council: that he would never again withdraw inspectors unilaterally, that if they were to be withdrawn, he would go through the Security Council, inform them, and get their permission. The inspectors work for the Council. But Richard Butler took a telephone call from Peter Burleigh, deputy U.S. ambassador, executed his marching orders, withdrew the inspectors, and two days later the bombing campaign started, using Richard Butler's report to the Security Council as justification – his report saying, of course, that the inspectors weren't being allowed to do their jobs by the Iraqis.

I emailed 60 minutes and asked them to invite Ritter on to clear up Rather's misinformation.